


deus ex machina

by kathillards



Series: diamonds in the sky [2]
Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 08:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11376012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathillards/pseuds/kathillards
Summary: Asuna reaches for humanity with fragile fingers; Poppy thinks they might fall off if she touches that far-off sun.  ―- Poppy, Asuna, and the after-effects of the reprogramming.





	deus ex machina

**Author's Note:**

> nobody asked for a character study of poppy pipopapo but i wrote it anyway.  
> set circa episode 30 because i have yet to catch up properly. probably doesn't do her justice but... i tried.jpg

Sometimes, she hates Emu for it.

Not all the time, of course. Not even most of the time. There’s so many things going on with him these days, most of what she feels is concern and panic, and maybe a little pity. Nobody should have to deal with Pallad in their head like that, controlling his body… she wants to save him, wants to protect him.

Most of the time, he’s always going to be that intern who was always falling over his own two feet, who stumbled into being Ex-Aid, stumbled into the Cyber Rescue Center, and stumbled his way around trying to save people.

But sometimes – just sometimes – she remembers fighting him. Remembers facing up to him in his Maximum Mighty suit, remembers the rush and the adrenaline, the anger, the panic when he raised his sword against her.

And she remembers him reaching inside her – into the lines of code, the genetics that make her who she is, the video game pumping through her veins – and rearranging it all. Rearranging _her_.

She remembers screaming. She remembers the nothingness that filled her – nothing but Emu and his power, nothing of who _she_ was, or had been, or ever would be, until he had her reprogrammed. And then, only images of a person she’s not sure she ever really was, emotions that belonged to a nurse she can barely remember being.

Poppy Pipopapo is not a hateful character, he says. She’s not an enemy. She’s a kind and happy character who just wants to dance. He smiles at her; he says, _Let’s play together._ He’s her friend. She’s _his_ friend.

But some days, Poppy Pipopapo hates Emu Hojo. Those moments, fleeting as they are, might be the only emotions left that are truly _hers_.

.

Asuna might hate him more. Or she might hate him less. She’s never really sure anymore.

Certainly, Asuna has the same emotions as Poppy most of the time – concern, sympathy, curiosity. Always trying to help Emu. Always trying to shove the part of her that is Bugster down as far as it will go, pretending she’s not Poppy Pipopapo as much she can. Letting everyone else pretend that she isn’t, either.

Asuna reaches for humanity with fragile fingers; Poppy thinks they might fall off if she touches that far-off sun.

.

Sometimes, she looks at Emu and all she sees is _him_.

This should make her hate him more, and maybe it does – Asuna hates him, certainly. She loves Emu but she can’t banish the image of his smile, the feeling of his hand on her face, the fear and hurt that had filled her when he’d knocked her to the ground. Asuna knows him as the intern; she’d given him his driver, his powers, she’d been there for him every step of the way, and all along, he’d been Pallad.

Pallad, who’d stolen her. Pallad, who’d tricked her. Pallad, who’d hit her.

Asuna is full of resentment. Poppy doesn’t quite know what to make of it. Because if Asuna hates Pallad, then she should hate Emu – aren’t they the same? Asuna and Emu, the levelheaded humans; Poppy and Pallad, the life-stealing Bugsters. One in the same. Mirror images of each other.

So, if she is Asuna then Pallad is Emu. So if she hates Pallad, she should hate Emu. And Asuna hates Pallad but she cares about Emu. And Poppy –

Sometimes, she’ll see Emu’s eyes flash red and all she can think is that she wishes he were dead.

It’s an awful thing to feel about someone who is supposed to be your friend. Even without her humanity, Poppy knows that much.

.

Asuna is sitting on the floor, arms around her knees, trembling, when Hiro finds her. He stops short, stares. It’s the middle of the night and she is scared and he can’t help. She knows he can’t. He’s not Emu.

“Poppy?” he asks slowly.

“Asuna,” she snaps at him. Though perhaps Poppy isn’t so bad anymore. She’s Kamen Rider Poppy even in this state, isn’t she? That means something.

“Right.” Hiro clears his throat. “What’s wrong?”

“I just…” Asuna shakes her head. She doesn’t know how to tell him that even though she doesn’t sleep, she had a nightmare. That she popped out of her game and felt hands choking her. Like she was about to be pushed over a ledge, into an unending darkness. “Don’t worry about it.”

Hiro stares down at her. Even in the dimly-lit room, he looks tall, and proud. Like a Kamen Rider should. And here she sits, huddled against the wall, scared of a shadow. He looks at her like he can’t understand what she’s trying to say. Humans and Bugsters were never meant to understand each other.

It’s okay, she wants to say. I don’t understand myself either. I have memories of a woman I never knew burning inside my mind. I’m a virus. I’m a hero. The only friend I ever made tried to kill me – or I tried to kill him. All that time I spent working here, with you, as me, as Asuna, never meant as much to you as it did to me.

Hiro sinks to his knees and settles back against the wall next to her. “You’re home now, Poppy,” he says quietly. “You’re safe.”

Asuna smiles weakly. “The only reason I came back,” she says, voice shaking, “is because Emu reprogrammed me. How do I know this is really me? Is this where I would have ended up without him interfering? Or would I still be with Pallad?”

Hiro opens his mouth, but no answer comes out. She didn’t really expect one, anyway.

.

Sometimes, she wants to kill the woman in her mind.

The other woman. The original one. The body she took over. She looks at her palms and sees them older, just starting to wrinkle around the edges, and feels nothing but disgust. The discontent that Pallad told her about – _Humans and Bugsters can never live in peace_. The rage that fills him, fills her, too.

And then she remembers that she wants to be nothing like Pallad, and she drops her hands like she’s carrying hot rocks.

Still, a nagging voice insists in the back of her mind, twisting and turning and wriggling deep inside her the faster she tries to run away: _What if you are like Pallad? What if you’re exactly like him and Emu reprogrammed you so you wouldn’t be able to tell? What if you’re just as angry, just as bitter, just as ready to see the world of humans burn –_

_What if the only reason you hate him, is because Emu wanted you to?_

She hates Emu more for the uncertainty than anything else, she thinks. Now she’ll never really know how she feels.

.

The memories haunt her until she wants to scream. Another woman, another life – someone else’s life, someone she stole, someone she _killed_. Is this her curse, to be filled with all these happy memories of somebody else’s life? Is this her punishment?

How many people can she possibly be? Poppy, Asuna, Kuroto’s mother. How many identities can she hold inside her body until she breaks? How long until one of them snaps? How long until all of them do?

Emu doesn’t have this problem. She hates herself for feeling jealous when he has so many other problems – Pallad possessing his body, the lack of control, the terror of being under a Bugster’s will. But he doesn’t have the memories. Pallad is a separate entity. He knows who Emu is, even underneath Pallad’s influence.

She asks him, once, “Do you ever think about how all your gaming achievements were because of him? Doesn’t it bother you?”

Emu looks at her consideringly. She meets his gaze and tries not to feel frightened that they might, in an instant, flash from brown to red – even though Pallad is nowhere near to terrorize her.

“Maybe,” he admits. “But I’m a doctor first. He had nothing to do with that. Everything I’ve done here, I’ve done myself.”

Asuna stares down at the table. What has she done, outside of Poppy? Carried patients to and from the hospital? Run around after Emu and Hiro, cleaning up their messes? Wasn’t all that still Poppy?

“Where’s the line?” she asks him, barely even noticing when he reaches out in concern to take her hands. “Where’s the line between you and Pallad?”

_Where’s the line between me and Poppy?_

Emu says, in that soft, doctor tone of his, “You and Poppy are different. She’s a good Bugster. She’s nothing like Pallad.”

Asuna wrenches her hands free of his grasp. It’s not nice, but it’s better than what she wants to say: _What if she’s only good because you made her good?_

.

Sometimes, she wants to hold the memories close and nurture them until all that’s left is the other woman’s life, and nothing of her.

The world doesn’t really need Poppy Pipopapo. She’s a Bugster. A human could be alive if it weren’t for her. She can see it in Hiro’s eyes everytime he looks at her – scared of what her existence means. Scared of what she can do to his world. And she can see it in Emu’s – proud that she’s a good Bugster, never stopping to consider that maybe she shouldn’t be. Maybe it’s an oxymoron.

She was born from someone else’s death. Can anyone truly be good after that?

Poppy sits on the stool in front of her game and thinks about the woman in her mind. Not Asuna – she knows Asuna too well, too much. The one she was born from, the one who gave up life so she could exist in the world of humans. Her memories are warm and crisp and bright. Full of laughter, full of heart.

Is this how all humans are? Poppy wonders. She presses play on her game, but nothing happens. Of course nothing happens. She’s not in there.

She doesn’t really have memories like that of herself. Some, of Hiro and Emu, of Taiga and Nico, of the good times working at the Cyber Rescue Center. But inevitably, each memory comes tainted with something else – Kiriya’s death, or her own kidnapping, or the infighting and the desperation that comes of being tasked to save the world.

She’s never really had a family. Someone to love, the way her memories love Kuruto. Something to do. Something to hope for.

Bugsters don’t have families. Bugsters have each other, and the war against humanity. Living with Pallad and Graphite and Lovelica, that’s what she remembers.

She wonders if it wouldn’t be better than this – the triple memories, and the bubbling anger, and the longing for better that neither Emu nor Hiro can understand. The constant wondering of who she’d be if it weren’t for the reprogramming. Which side she would end up fighting with.

Some small part of her, selfishly, wishes she was back with the Bugsters. Just to see for herself if that’s really where she belongs.

.

Poppy Pipopapo is a happy character. Poppy Pipopapo is a good person. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She doesn’t want to destroy the world. All she wants to do is dance and play with you. All she wants is peace and fun. Music and laughter.

But sometimes – _sometimes_ – Poppy Pipopapo is angry. And maybe those are the times when she’s most human, after all.


End file.
